Inez stood by the hospital window, her arms hanging limply at her side. Like a dandelion shaken loose from its stem she felt bare and empty.
The door to her room abruptly swung open.
She glanced over her shoulder and then turned from the window completely. She raised her hand, as if to shield her eyes from something too bright to see. Besides her mom, only white uniforms had come and gone from her room. Now she saw a large clown standing in the doorway.
He wore green tennis shoes that looked two feet long. Striped pink socks led the way to calf-length yellow pants. She paused to study the red coat decorated in gold braids like a drum major wore. Finally she saw the white face, outlined red lips and tufts of rainbow wig under a faded black derby.
She stepped back against the window. “I think you’re in the wrong room.”
The clown shook his head and waddled further inside. He stopped, the hospital bed between them. Reaching into the pocket of his bright yellow pants, he withdrew a small red box, shaped like a heart. With purple gloved hands, he laid it on the bed.
Inez saw white letters on the box. Curiosity made her step closer until she could read the tiny words: For You.
Slowly, she looked up to meet the clown’s stare. Within his blue gaze Inez saw a raw energy. She wondered why he had come into her hospital room.
“What do you want?” she said.
Bowing his head, the clown’s eyes closed. As he opened them, his wide scarlet lips slanted downwards. He shook his head slowly. Then he sniffed a wispy breath as if drawing back tears.
“I don’t need a sad clown,” she said. “Go away!”
The wig bobbed with his three short nods. He raised his fingers to his cheeks. He thumped and poked upon them until his mouth straightened. Then he waited for her response.
Inez crossed her arms. “At least you didn’t give me a stupid smile.”
The clown shook his head.
Inez felt impatient with his silence. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
His arm swept over the hospital bed. Inez looked down. The box remained where he had left it; a small red heart against white wrinkles and faded stains. Tiny printed words: For You.
Inez could do nothing but shiver away from his gift. “My baby died. They told you, didn’t they?” Her stare burned the box into a haze. “I heard a heartbeat yesterday. It was finally real. Now it’s gone. My mom told me it’s a blessing, a blessing! Can you believe that? Do you know how I feel right now?”
She looked up to see the clown nodding.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “You don’t know. You’re only a dumb clown.”
The clown’s face widened in surprise. For a moment, Inez thought the expression would pop his hat off. Suddenly, he walked toward the bed.
Inez stepped sideways against the white wall.
The clown raised his gloved fingers in front of him, spreading them open. Interlocking his fingers, he held them together like a purple fan. He lifted them in front of his face, shielding his mouth, his nose. But not his eyes; they had widened as if a gate opened between them.
Slowly he pulled one hand from the other, hiding one behind his back. The remaining hand slowly closed into a clenched fist. Twisting, squeezing, wrenching from side to side. A painful ache which Inez knew intimately, for it had strangled her own heart into something too tight to hold inside.
“Please go away,” she said, her voice cracking with a sob. She put her hands to her face, turning herself against the wall. She hated the misery. She wanted winter sunshine, a glass of chocolate milk, her favorite baggy T-shirt; snuggling in the chair, laughing at cartoons.
Her tears spilled in clumsy drops. She ground them into her face, but they only returned, reborn in her pain.
Soft, gloved fingers pressed something cool and white against her cheek. She crumpled the handkerchief between her fingers; then pulled it to her nose, sniffling, wiping and finally blowing.
Ever so slightly, she blinked through the blurry vision of the clown’s face until she could see him better. Deep lines crinkled around his eyes; smaller ones lined the corners of his mouth. Both were topped with creases of make-up like tiny gullies over his face. Under the wig, Inez saw slips of gray hair. He smelled of moth balls and peppermint.
And despite the surprise of his arrival, Inez discovered the tenderness in his eyes made her feel less lonely. He wasn’t there out of duty like a nurse or out of obligation like her mother. He didn’t carry any judgment, only a gift from the heart.
“Thank you,” she finally murmured, sliding the handkerchief into her robe pocket.
His lips lifted into a smile, a friendly expression she could accept from him now. He turned then, and pointed to the bed. Inez looked at the clown. “Now what?”
Never dropping his gaze from hers, he took her hand into a firm clasp of his fingers. The soft moisture in his gloves melted against the palm of her hand.
The clown took a step toward the bed; she walked with him. For Inez, each step lasted longer than the moment. Anticipation gently replaced the aching. She had a gift before her. A mystery, a surprise still waited. For You.
She let go of the clown’s hand.
Inez reached out, lifted the box off the bed and let it rest in the palm of her hand. “Do I open it?” She looked at the clown for an answer, but he just touched his lips with two fingers and turned to go. She watched him walk out of the hospital room, and then she stared down at the box, wondering.
And for the first time in two days, she felt hope. And its tiny flicker fit perfectly inside her small red box.